Marie Biondolillo

Thoughts on “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” or What Color is Your Werewolf?

Why try to choose between a werewolf and a vampire when you can just pick . . . ALL OF THEM, Y'ALL

Saw “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” recently and definitely have some thoughts. First of all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that all boyfriends are either vampire boyfriends or werewolf boyfriends. Some dudes might think that this maxim is facile, reducing bros in all of their wondrous complexity into mere binary objects. To those dudes I say, welcome to life, white dudes. Nobody cares about your complicated inner lives. All anybody cares about is the inner life of the teenage girl, because it is the key to capitalist glory in These Troubling Economic Times. Gross but true–our weird service economy depends on making everybody as insecure as teenage girls, so as to entice them into buying a bunch of crap they don’t need for their heads and bodies. This is actually all Reagan’s fault, but that’s another topic (he’s a total werewolf boyfriend, in case you were wondering.)

Anyway, vampire boyfriends vs. werewolf boyfriends. This dichotomy is so true I probably don’t even need to explain it, but here is an attempt. Men attempt to mold their cool Masculine Identities around whatever crap they think will make them the most powerful. If dudes are weak, they try to get smart and/or pick up lots of technical skills. If dudes are strong, they try to get even stronger and more powerful, and also try to pick up lots of technical skills. The technical skills are for when you have to make conversation with other dudes and you need a topic. Dudes are important networking contacts for other dudes, because they may know women.

Vampire boyfriends are often neeerds who look like little girls in the face. This is why they are so obsessed with coolness.

Vampire boyfriends are often dudes who think they are smart. Maybe they are smart nerds or smart Republicans or smart alts or smart/creepy poker-playing middle managers–it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that these guys get off on control. Their self-esteem is predicated upon mastery, and they get really pumped about having mastery of various things. Since the universe is full of an semi-infinite amount of things, these dudes are understandably somewhat insecure, for most of them know that they cannot truly master everything. Still, they care a lot about being better than other people, and that is an important fact to file away about these types. Vampires are essentially reactive–even though they seem like they are all c0ol and powerful, they actually cannot function without the blood of lowly humans. Vampires also only seem cool in comparison to humans–they’re really n0t very cool at all, if you compare them to sweet monsters like centaurs and Mothras. Y0ur vampire boyfriend is only powerful in contexts where somebody gives a shit about his mastery.

Werewolf boyfriends, on the other hand, are wild and crazy guys. These are the guys that show up at your window at two in the morning with a bunch of azaleas that they broke off the bush right outside said window, after which they proceed pick a fights with your neighbors and knock over things, under the (mistaken) assumption that this behavior is cool and romantic and Percy Bysshe Shelley-like. These guys enjoy www.gowildcasino.com and gambling, drinking, and ruining things. They are full of spontaneity (i.e., weird emotions and trouble.) You should not allow your werewolf boyfriend to drive a car or talk to your landlord.

You can tell Percy Bysshe Shelley is a werewolf boyfriend because he's flaunting some waxed chesticles.

Ultimately, neither werewolf boyfriends nor vampire boyfriends can be trusted. Vampire boyfriends will take all your stuff, and werewolf boyfriends will break all your stuff. In “New Moon,” Bella vacillates between freaking out because her vampire boyfriend is negging her all the time, and freaking out because her werewolf boyfriend is hanging out with sketchpads and running around in the rain all the time. In the end, she chooses her vampire boyfriend, mostly because he threatens to kill himself if she doesn’t pay attention to him and do what he tells her to do. This is a classic vampire boyfriend gambit. Her werewolf boyfriend can only counter by threatening to withdraw his friendship, which isn’t a particularly equal counter-weight (werewolf boyfriends are not good at bargaining, because they are dumb.) What we can take away from this saga is this:

Don’t hang out with werewolves. Don’t hang out with vampires. You should have been listening to your friend Anna Kendrick, who made fun of you so awesomely when you were mooning around over Edward and talking to weird motorcycle dudes. Now Anna Kendrick is starring in movies that will probably be Oscar-nominated opposite George Clooney, while you’re stuck at some dumb Pope festival with a bunch of olds plus Dakota Fanning! Bad move, y’all.

Better than you.

At the end of the day, if your friends tell you that you are acting crazy, you should probably listen to them instead of jumping off a cliff. Just sayin’.